Artefacthttp://www.artefactmagazine.com
Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:59:37 +0000en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Artefact special issuehttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/12/artefact-special-issue/
http://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/12/artefact-special-issue/#respondMon, 12 Mar 2018 16:27:42 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=69696Next term we will be producing a special issue of Artefact magazine on the theme of gender and sexuality. Like our previous collaborations (on truth and terror in 2017 and migration in 2016 and social activism in 2015) it will be in collaboration with students at universities in other countries. So far we have confirmed Ramon Llull in Barcelona as participants and are talking to others.

It is open to anybody who wishes to take part, whether as a writer, editor, illustrator or photographer. We will kick things off after Easter with a round-table event at which we will discuss ideas and approaches with writers and activists on gender and sexuality. If you’d like to take part or want to know more, email Simon Hinde on s.hinde@lcc.arts.ac.uk

Catalonia has been on the main focus of media outlets all over the world for several months now. Front pages and social media have been, and still are, trying to keep everyone up to date on how the controversial relationship between Spain’s central government and Catalonia’s is developing.

The region’s political uncertainty has its origins in a series of key events. These are the referendum of October 1, 2017, where citizens were asked whether they wanted Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic; the circumstances in which the referendum was held; the confusing results; the declaration of independence by former president Puigdemont on October 27; his dismissal by Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy only a few hours later; Puigdemont fleeing to Brussels to avoid jail, and the elections to vote for a new president for Catalonia’s Parliament on December 21, 2017.

Neither the referendum in October nor the elections in December solved Catalonia’s instability as quickly as people wished. Some months after what could be considered the peak of the crisis, Artefact travelled to Barcelona to see how things are now.

What do the capital’s streets look like? How does Catalan society feel? How did they experience the polemical referendum? How is the political situation affecting their lives?

Featured image by Teresa Gottein

]]>http://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/08/catalonias-constitutional-crisis-barcelonas-view/feed/0Sukran Moral: A story of violence, sex and successhttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/07/sukran-moral-a-story-of-violence-sex-and-success/
http://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/07/sukran-moral-a-story-of-violence-sex-and-success/#respondWed, 07 Mar 2018 16:29:17 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=68605“Tell me what it was like? To be hung up on a cross mostly nude?”

She says she never came down from that cross for the rest of her life. Even though the artist in front of me was not actually nailed to a wooden cross, she is used to being crucified for those who come after her.

Sukran Moral and I are sitting in some flashy, hip café in downtown Istanbul at the arty and bohemian neighbourhood of Galata – home to artists, and those who wish to be artists. Everyone in the café is buried in Sartre books, only looking up to fix their rounded hipster glasses and subtlety whisper about my companion.

Moral is performance art royalty, the living and breathing depiction of the word quirky; a feminist and feminine creature of the 90s. Her journey from a small town near the Black Sea coast of Turkey, through domestic abuse, to Rome’s art circle and international acclaim has every trait of the great biographies she grew up reading.

Death threats, feminism, violence, perseverance, and sex. An heiress of Yoko Ono and Marina Abramovic in the non-Western side of the globe, the first of her kind in Turkey. Also, the first female artist to pose as the crucified Jesus in the history of art.

“Do you want to share a pizza?” She asks me nonchalantly, lighting up a long, slim cigarette, utterly oblivious to her surroundings. She informs the waitress that she will be sharing a pizza with her friend whom she met in-person for the first time today.

“Men can be playful and grin and be taken seriously. But a woman can’t.”

The wild waves of dark brown curls that used to brush her spine have been replaced by a short, modern bob. Yet, she maintains the same tulle gloves, red lipstick, and playful aura which jumps between the spirit of a curious nine-year-old and a mature woman, who is fully aware of her charisma.

Moral fixes her leather skirt, getting as comfy as one can get on a wooden stool placed on a narrow pavement. She crosses her legs, covered in black tights despite the sweltering afternoon. The first thing she would have you know about her is that she is a woman who does what she wants to — regardless of the weather, the critics, the public and pretty much anything else you can imagine.

“I’m not someone who expects to be validated by other people,” she tells me, “I don’t expect people to like me.”

Her demeanour is of someone who has succeeded in life but also has been through so much that their strength is braided with disappointments and compassion. Her gestures are extravagant, a souvenir from three decades spent in Rome. But her smile rests modest.

Moral has done countless performances, videos, and installations which often depict violence against women or other underrepresented groups. You can find her works in collections ranging from The British Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum and The Istanbul Modern Art Museum. You might also run into her works if you walk into a brothel, the men’s section of a Turkish bath or a mental hospital.

She might decide to turn any place into a museum, disrupting their usual function by choosing to exhibit there. Whether it is violence, repression or the hypocrisy of society, she will find a way to bring you face-to-face with whatever it is that she thinks you should be facing.

Moral is a controversial, taken-for-granted rock star in the Turkish art scene. But a rock star nonetheless – and sometimes – as it is with most famous people, it is difficult to remember she is also a flesh-and-bone human, who is sitting across me. “Ugh, I have the flu, I literally have the flu, and I hate having the flu,” she says.

Moral performing Bordello where she turned a brothel in Istanbul into a modern art museum, 1997

She is one of those people whose charm comes from appearing intimidating at first, but make you feel at ease the second they start to talk. My intimidation melts like snow under the sun when she looks up at me from the menu and chuckles like an amused child.

“I’ve been reading this great book,” she exclaims, shaking her Italian copy of Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists by Linda Nochlin in the air.

“Because women have been seen as second-class citizens for centuries,” Moral replies out loud to Nochlin, “and the patriarchy only wants to see the man as a genius.”

“I mean, you have to be a bit of a genius to do art, right? You have to step out the norms a bit to be able to create art; you have to be a little mad. That ‘mad genius’ status, however, is not easily attainable to women. The kind of eccentric behaviour that comes with being an artist. When men do it, it is superiority; it is quirky, he is a genius. But when female artists act the same way, people say what the fuck is she doing?”

She was recently in Germany, getting her photograph taken for a catalogue. Moral sat straight in front of the camera and did the unthinkable — smiled. The curator told her to pose without grinning. She should be serious. Moral asked why. She talks about tragic things in her work, the curator argued, she has to be serious. If you are playful, flirty, smiley, can you not talk about serious things in your work?

“If you are a woman, you can’t,” she declares, “men can be playful and grin and be taken seriously. But a woman can’t.”

Moral enjoys being feminine, always, in all ages. And she is determined to continue being so — she will still be wearing tulle gloves and lipstick, even when she is 90 years old. She told the curator this was her character, that she always smiles, taking it out on all the years when she was not able to.

“Then don’t take me seriously,” she shrugs, fiddling with the corners of the menu, “I don’t want to live in a two-faced society. I don’t have to be like them, and I don’t want to be. If the ignorant people are the majority, what they say will be perceived as right. Even if it isn’t true, you become the one who’s not right because you’re the minority.”

“The patriarchy only wants to see the man as a genius.”

Undoubtedly, Moral is someone who always speaks her mind and someone who is used to getting in trouble for it. Whether her audience is her friends or a journalist, she obtains the same calm, wise and awfully playful tone in her remarks. She has the guts to tell Der Spiegel journalist, Josh Ward, “you are a Catholic, I can tell, next question.” And the guts to tell her friends and fellow artists when she disagrees with them.

“In the 90s, all over the world, it was suddenly out of fashion to say you are a feminist,” she reminisces.

Sukran Moral would proudly announce she is a feminist and Italian women would go “ma bastaaa” (enough), they would claim that they have alienated the men too much. Maybe in her country, there was a need for such a thing, but they did not need feminism, for sure.

“But the world started going backward socioeconomically. Women did not see the equalities they were hoping for in their lives, and the rise of the right and racism caused fear. And fear, now, made people take action,” she says of feminism being on the rise again.

“Buongiornooo,” she waves her hand which causes a waiter to think we want to order, but Moral is actually calling to the artists and friends from her past, asking them where have they been.

Moral performing Dolore in Turin

For a brief second, she becomes a regular woman, going through a scavenger hunt in her purse in an attempt to show me something.

“Wait, dear,” she mutters, pulling out something that resembles a chord decorated with tiny flowers. An unidentified object she apparently found on the road and made into a tiara for herself which she carefully places on top of her head.

“I’m just playing,” she chuckles, “I’d always play games when I was a child as well. I’d make up stories and do sorts of plays.”

Moral was not always a rebellious avant-garde artist. When she was born in the small Turkish town of Temre in 1962, she was merely one of the five Moral children. Little Sukran would gather the other kids at a place where the family stored the wood and coal, and she would perform plays and stories which were made up spontaneously.

“Like a theatre play?” I ask ignorantly.

“Darling, what theatre in Temre? I was doing theatre in my head. Those plays are perhaps the most pleasant memories of my childhood, to be able to play freely. I suppose that was what saved me.”

Moral understood the difference between women and men as a little girl, even before primary school. There was something strange, her and her sister were not equal to their brothers. When her brother would eat a dolma, a dish of vegetables or meat stuffed in vine leaves, her father would give him money. It was almost as if it did not matter whether his daughters ate or not. The daughters were not allowed to eat meat because it was more difficult to buy. Moral understood then and there that the girls were not important.

“Boys should eat more,” her father would say, “boys should eat meat.”

The Morals were conservative, with her father not wanting his daughters to continue education once primary school was completed. And that is when the burden of being a girl started. Evidently, she started menstruating.

“They told me that I’d grown up now. That I had breasts now. I was ugly as a child. Or perhaps I saw myself that way because now when I look at the photographs, I wasn’t particularly ugly or anything. But I felt ugly.”

Once she hit puberty, something weird happened. It was as if, suddenly, she had become pretty. That is when they told her she could no longer play on the streets. She had grown up. She is a girl, and they are boys.

“Something like an earthquake happened in me. And at that moment, I hated that I had bled. I hated being a woman.”

The little girl looked at her breasts and cried, cried and cried. She would look at them and cry “don’t grow.” She would put the smallest hazelnuts she could find in her bra because the superstition went if you put hazelnuts by your bosom, your breasts would be as tiny as they are.

“All the official institutions are politely closing their doors on me. I can see it, I can feel it.”

It did not take Moral a long time to come up with a solution as she realised her big brother could still go out because he is a boy. So, she started wearing his clothes, and disguised herself as a boy, sneaking out, she could easily go anywhere and do anything. She could attend to her beloved 9:00pm open-air cinema again and dream of different worlds.

I ask if her parents could really not tell.

She said no, because she would do it so secretly, and because anything that they were able to tell, she would get beaten for it.

“That is when I understood how much a transformation could change my life. The idea of becoming a transformation performance artist began in my mind there.”

Moral’s eyes, almost turning into dark pools of determination, stare directly into mine when she questions why little girls have to experience such things. Why has she experienced such things? She believes it was so that she could talk about these experiences, that she now must do so.

There is also a bit of survival in it. She reveals that she often wonders how she would have lived if she was not telling these things and speaking about them. Telling these stories gives her, and others, strength. To her, the only way to be strong is to tell.

“Telling, as you know, is the purpose of art.”

Even though her father did not want his daughter to go to middle school, Moral went secretly. Despite the domestic abuse, she graduated from high school and went off to Ankara, Turkey’s capital, to study fine arts. She subsequently moved to Rome in 1989 to eventually graduate from the painting section of Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma.

While she is Turkish, Moral is an artist that made her name in Rome, having her big break in Italy. She says there was a bit of hustle and bustle in Rome then, which is gone now. A liveliness in the art scene all over the world in the 90s. She had peace in her little studio and was right at the heart of the “art intelligensia”.

The Artist by Sukran Moral

In 1994, she produced The Artist, a self-portrait of her crucified like Jesus. “When I think of Sukran Moral, the first thing that comes to my mind is a textbook photo of her work The Artist, where she is posing as if crucified, nude, with her eyes piercing directly into mine,” Dea Dzankovic, an artist who also interviewed Moral, tells me.

“I will never forget the first time I saw that image,” Dzankovic recalls, “the first thing it conveyed to me was a kind of pure defiance, a female rebellion.”

It was taboo-shattering work and Moral claims that the initial shock of the art world was followed by silence. That year, they did not even talk about it. She could only exhibit it once or twice and then; they chose to ignore it.

Since then, Moral had many solo exhibitions around the world, doing work around identity, immigration, anything and everything that she felt needed to be talked about. She did Il Matrimonio con tre (Married, with Three Men) which depicted her marrying three young men.

“Well, that one, they talked about,” she tells me as she takes a drag from her cigarette with a half-smile, “because apparently, some journalists thought I actually married three people. The art circle, again, ignored it though.”

In 1997, she did Museum & Morgue where she transformed The Museum of Contemporary Art Workshop at Sapienza University of Rome into a morgue. She performed at a women’s asylum and in the men’s section of a Turkish bath in Hamam, both in Istanbul. The video of Hamam which was shot secretly was and still is one of the most influential works on the contemporary artists of the world.

“I’ve transformed a museum in Rome into a morgue, did performances on a gynecology table in Speculum, and the art circle ignored such potent works and were disturbed by it.” Moral’s art is indeed, intended to disturb you at times, which some Turkish people on forums described as how “she beats you up with her art.”

Moral performing Bordello (1997) where she turned a brothel into a modern art museum

The same year, Moral did Bordello in which she turned a brothel in Istanbul into a modern art museum, stating she wanted to attract attention to the society’s hypocrisy and false morality, and show the realities of the city that they live in.

Holding up a “For Sale” sign across her exposed breasts, she criticised the sale of women like a commodity which she sees in a way as a modern slave trade.

In her Der Spiegel interview, she said what is scandalous was not the nudity, but the fact that here she was, an intellectual woman, who proposed doing something scandalous. She said it would have been no big deal if she really had been a whore, so just being a female avant-garde artist was scandalous.

When asked whether she would do a performance such as Bordello again in the Turkey of today, she replies she has never regretted the things she has done. But she does think that if she were to do it now, she would be late, it would be more appropriate to do it at the time in 1997.

Moral went on to do other controversial works, exhibiting around the world; Apocalypse, Despair, Jesus&Muhammad, Love&Violence. Through her art, she could defy all the wrongs in the world; she could speak up and shock and confront.

For the 51st Venice Biennial in 2007, Moral did The Adulteress. Covered by a pure, white veil, you could see her being buried in dirt, a fate many young girls have faced in her hometown. She recalls being faced with horribly racist comments when she did The Adulteress. Who the hell was she to do this? They have told her that they don’t bury women and that she should go and do that kind of thing in her own country.

Moral performing The Adulteress

However, the backlash Moral was getting accustomed to provoking, went to another level after a cold December night in 2010. There was a dry, slapping cold outside, whereas inside of the gallery Casa dell’Arte in Istanbul, there was a heat radiating from the crowd, covered with anticipation.

There were 147 viewers, mostly from the art world, and a bed in which the performance would be happening. Between them, a thin, tulle, see-through curtain. Moral performed Amemus (Lovemaking) which was her and a female actress just making love for about twenty minutes.

Amemus became such a big controversy on the street as well as in the art world that Moral announced she was stopping the production process and leaving Turkey due to the number of death threats she was receiving — from people who viewed her performance as pornography.

Moral suddenly found herself isolated; institutions were not giving her support, and even her friends were scared to give her a call. People in the art world told her she should not have done Amemus, after all, nothing was happening to the other artists who have done other works in the country.

She gazes into her tea, boiling, and scarlet, in an hour-glass-shaped traditional Turkish tea glass. Moral remembers that nobody wanted to stand by her side and defend her in 2010. She told them that this was not about her doing something which was deemed “forbidden,” the issue was about freedom. She still thinks the people who have to defend democracy in Turkey do not have a full understanding of what it means, and they can only speak up when the same thing happens to them.

“That is what democratic rights mean,” she says almost spilling her tea, “you defend me, not because you stand by my particular choices, but because you stand with democracy. What they don’t understand is that if you had spoken up when this had happened to me, it would not be happening to you today.”

In today’s Turkey, Moral views conformism and populism as very dominant defence mechanisms. Her current problem is not being able to exhibit her projects in her hometown.

“All the official institutions are politely closing their doors on me. I can see it, I can feel it.”

She pauses as if she suddenly remembered something. “Darling, I am so sorry I can’t talk about more sophisticated things with you, the things about art that should be talked about. I suppose that is the faith of artists from Turkey; we’re still debating some things that are almost medieval; miniskirts and ripped jeans.”

Whenever she speaks about Turkey, Moral is baffled by being criticised for representing her country in a bad light. “How are things supposed to go for the better if we don’t criticise our negatives?” She asks, going a few octaves higher and gaining a few more listeners in the café now.

“Anywho dear,” she goes back to a calm, almost chipper tone as if she is wary of discouraging me, “don’t be upset about it.”

Moral performing Amemus in Casa dell’Arte Gallery in Istanbul, 2010

Regardless of acceptance in her own country, Moral goes on to exhibit her works around the world in solo and group projects. In which language shall I tell my story… in The Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam. Bodies of Silence at the Royal College of Arts, in London. Light From The Middle East at Victoria and Albert Museum, in London. She is relentlessly pursuing the themes of gender inequality and violence against women because she believes there is still a lot of work to be done.

Moral thinks we have talked a lot about Turkey because it is where we are from. However, she stresses, violence against women is an international issue. When she did an exhibition in Norway, one of the most modern and improved countries in the world, the women there were able to identify with her work as well. They too have been subjected to violence.

And the same applies to Italy where she spent most of her adult life; they are a macho country, she claims. Whether it is the US, the UK, or anywhere else in the world, to Moral, it does not matter, because there is still no gender equality in the world.

Change happens slowly, she says putting out her umpteenth cigarette, but she would like to believe that she has, or the sum of her life’s work has contributed to it.

The sum of her life is one tumultuous tale of art and repression. And I would like to think, a triumph. A woman that cannot be shut up come what may. An artist who cannot be dismayed or discouraged. How was she not discouraged, I ask. Has she never felt in despair?

“There have been so, so many times when I felt in despair,” she says with a disheartened laugh.

Moral admits she would be lying if she said she never questioned what she was doing or thought about why these things were happening to her. Somehow, she overcomes them. Maybe because she has confidence in herself, she offers. She has to depend on herself. And biographies.

“I love biographies you know, they really help. Whatever feeling you go through has happened to other people in history. One needs a sort of comparison. There are such few books, such few films about female artists. And I think women really need that.”

Despite it all, Moral knows she can overcome things because she is someone who can be happy with very few things. She is the type of person who will walk out the house to get a bouquet of flowers, et voila, she will be happy.

“When I say very few things, I mean fewer than fewer,” she tells me. “I was a child who would talk to the patterns on the curtains; I guess because I had no toys or because I was so lonely. I can console myself for anything that might happen. Because thankfully, today I have a lot more than those patterns on the curtains.”

All images courtesy of Sukran Moral

]]>http://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/07/sukran-moral-a-story-of-violence-sex-and-success/feed/0We need to talk about foodhttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/we-need-to-talk-about-food/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 14:37:32 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=68483We need to change the way we talk about food. The way we talk about food is unhealthy and toxic, and we treat food as if it is a bad thing.

We tell ourselves we need to restrict our diets, but we need to talk about food for the wonderful thing it is. Food can do wondrous things: it can bring people together, it allows us to take part in other cultures, it is comforting, and above all, we need it to survive.

Over the last few years, diets have become increasingly popular. Brands such as Weight Watchers, SlimFast and the Atkins diet have become some of the most well-known diets out there. In the last few years with the growing use of social media, we have seen things such as wellness, juice cleanses and ‘’clean’’ eating mask themselves as a ‘lifestyle’, but in reality, they are still diets, they are still a way of restricting ourselves.

To put it plainly, these diets all imply that there is a wrong way to eat. In particular, “clean” eating bothers me; the word ‘’clean’’ implies that if you are not eating “clean”, you are eating “dirty”. When we diet or restrict the food we eat or the amount we eat, we deny ourselves the pleasure of eating, and we wait for “cheat days” and feel guilty when we eat food that is “bad”.

They way these diets are set out are strikingly similar to the way some people with eating disorders act and behave when struggling. Labelling certain foods as bad and feeling guilty when eaten.

The book ‘Eat Pretty, Live Well’

Meticulously counting calorie intake and taking note of what you have eaten during the day are some of the things that these diets promote. These diets all attach beauty and happiness to food and diet, the ‘healthier’ you are the more beautiful you are and in turn, the happier you are.

An example of this is the book Eat Pretty, Live Well: A Guided Journal for Nourishing Beauty, Inside And Out by Jolene Hart. The book asks the reader to track what they are eating, how that made them feel, the time they ate and the setting they ate in. None of this is healthy – it breeds a toxic relationship with food.

It asks the reader to precisely write about the food they consumed throughout the day and similarly using the word ‘pretty’ and talking about beauty in association to the food that you’ve consumed suggests that there is an ‘ugly’ way to eat food. The only way to talk about food is a positive one.

No food is bad, no food is better than another. Food is food, and you should eat what makes you happy. We shouldn’t be promoting restrictive diets but instead, be encouraging each other to have happy and healthy relationships not only with food but ourselves.

Ruby Tandor who starred in the fourth series of The Great British Bake Off recently published a book titled Eat Up, which talks about food, fad diets, mental health and teaches you how to fall back in love with food; it is a book for everyone.

British Journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge said of the book: “A wonderful read, whatever you eat. Loved this book for helping me rediscover joy in food when ‘new year, new me’ diet rhetoric was getting unbearable.” Nigella Lawson tweeted Tandor earlier in the year congratulating her on the publishing of the book.

Ruby openly talks about her struggles with food and uses her social media accounts to talk about food and mental health positively. She recently posted to Instagram talking about the problems that come with eating disorders, recovering from one and complicated relationships with food.

With more than 100,000 followers on Twitter and almost 50,000 on Instagram, she is sending out a positive message to some many people who probably don’t even realise they need it.

YouTube and Instagram have allowed people to share their eating habits with others quickly, and this has allowed this new type of diet sky rocket into the mainstream and to become a part of peoples’ daily routine. The link between diets and social media have become more obvious and increasingly more concerning.

It has allowed people who already feel uncomfortable about food to look at these people and worry about their diets or people who never seemed bothered about their diets become concerned that the way they are eating is ‘wrong’ or unhealthy. It is undeniable that social media affects the way that we see ourselves.

According to research by Girl Guiding, a charity that aims to give “girls across the UK to the space and opportunities they need to thrive, grow and give back to their communities,” They say35 per cent of girls aged 11-21 say they post on social media every day, 45 per cent say their phone is the most important thing they own, and 35 per cent said their biggest worry online was comparing themselves to others online.

These numbers are alarming as girls as young as 11 are worrying about the way that they are perceived by others online. The way we use social media is unhealthy we are seeking validation from people and from likes. Our diets are now connected to how we look and how others think we look.

Social media is where we spend most of our time online. According to global web index, it is at 33 per cent compared to 16 per cent spent on online TV and streaming. Comparing this increase of social media usage to the rise in a number of people accessing mental health services which have been rising each year, there is a visible pattern.

Below is a graph that shows a 64 per cent increase in referrals to specialist child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) between 2012/13 and 2014/15.

There has been a rise in young adults reporting mental health issues over a more extended period; between 1993 and 2014 there has been a 35 per cent increase.

Public Health England’s graphic shows there is a clear problem with young people, eating disorder and how they are both connected to social media:

Young adults and eating disorder figures [Public Health England]

Another issue is advertising and the way that bodies are portrayed in advertising, take for example Protein Worlds 2015 advert that was put up around different cities in the world. The advert featured a model in a bikini and asked the reader the question ‘Are you beach body ready?’.

People slammed the advert as ‘body shaming’, as it implied that if you don’t look like these women, your body is not ready to go to the beach in a bikini.

A petition on Change.org gained over 70,000 signatures. The Advertising Standard Authority received 378 complaints where people complained about some issues including that an advert that was promoting a slimming product was socially irresponsible.

While the ASA said the advert was ‘inoffensive’ and that the advert “prompted readers to think about whether they were in the shape they wanted to be for the summer and we did not consider that the accompanying image implied that a different body shape to that shown was not good enough or was inferior.”

Although the advert was pulled, and Protein World was told that the advert was not allowed to reappear in its current form, it was because ASA investigated the advert before these issues came to light based on “concerns about a range of health and weight loss claims, the ad could not appear again in its current form.” The ASA separately investigated whether the advert was “in breach of the advertising rules on harm, offence, and social responsibility,” and ultimately decided that in that sense no further action was needed.

Rebecca Field, a spokeswoman for the eating disorders charity Beat, gave her reaction to Huffington Post: “While we recognise advertising and the media cannot cause eating disorders – they are much more complex than that – we are aware how toxic images can be to an individual. Everybody is different, and Beat will continue to campaign to see a wide variety of shapes and sizes represented in the media.”

When The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was elected, he announced he would move to ban body shaming adverts on the underground. In a statement, the mayor said: “As the father of two teenage girls, I am extremely concerned about this kind of advertising which can demean people, particularly women, and make them ashamed of their bodies. It is high time it came to an end.”

This is the kind of action we need to take to tackle the conversation that surrounds food and our bodies. Food is something that our body needs to survive. We should not be restricting ourselves to certain foods and specific diets, and we should be enjoying a balanced one that makes us happy.

Carbs are not the enemy, sugar is not the devil, and our body needs both to survive. The way we are talking about food and diet is becoming increasingly unhealthy and toxic. We concentrate more on how to be “healthy” and “fit”, rather than focusing on our happiness and our mental health. Since children and young people use social media and the internet so regularly now, we need to be aware of not only the content we put online, but the content that they see and have access to.

Children and young adults are the most vulnerable and susceptible to these so-called ‘lifestyles’, and we need to ensure that they do not feel pressured to look perfect and that they need to restrict their diet. But not just for them, but for everyone who struggles with food and with their diet.

This is how I travel for free. Actually, this is how I get paid to travel. I deliver packages from one country to another with a matter of urgency. Sometimes it’s as thin as a paper, other times it’s five over-weight suitcases.

I was working in New York City when I first became involved in this. I was in a meeting when my phone started vibrating, one notification after another.

I peeked to see they were from my brother. “Answer. Fast. Do you want to go to Tahiti?” I guessed he was planning his holidays ahead. “When?” I wrote back, typing under the table. “The plane leaves in three hours. Yes or no.” I didn’t ask more questions, “Yes.”

Leaving the office in New York City

Right after that, I received a call saying that my Uber was waiting outside my office and that it would take me to the airport. On the way to Newark, I would receive more information. I answered the second call. They told me I would first fly to Albany, New York’s state capital, where I would pick up a package. I would spend the night there and leave at 5:00am to Los Angeles.

The flight to Tahiti departed a few hours later. “How many days do you want to spend in Tahiti?” I thought at least 30. I asked for four. “Ok, all booked. We will now start a WhatsApp group. Don’t you want to know what’s in the package?” I didn’t even care, going to Moana’s land and getting paid for it? I could be carrying a cocktail of drugs for all I cared.

But still, I asked. “Cables for a cruise. It’s leaving in two days.” The anxiety I didn’t know I had, faded away. Now I had to message them every time I boarded a plane, landed, got an Uber, and checked in a hotel.

Enjoying in the dreamy island of Tahiti after hitchhiking for an hour

That was my first experience as an on-board courier. The easiest, most fun money I have ever earned. Everything went so smoothly, no questions asked at any of the borders. The package was picked up at the airport in Tahiti. I had four full days to enjoy the dreamy, honeymooner-filled island.

I later learned that it does not always go as smoothly as my first experience went.

Surprisingly for most, being an on-board courier is more common than it sounds. Hundreds of frequent flyers around the world board planes on a daily basis to deliver files, packages, and suitcases to countries they hadn’t even planned on going. Some of them make a living out of it. One trip a month pays my rent and allows me to travel to a new country.

I received a second message a few months later. “Argentina tomorrow?” It was from Wings on Board, the company that had sent me to Tahiti a few months back. “Yep,” I replied. “Do you want to spend a day in Amsterdam or New York. Or both?”

Boarding the plane to Washington

I left for Amsterdam that same day, spent a full day in the city and picked up the packages in the morning. There were five suitcases this time. I opened them to find boxes of white powder. Pineapple powder, it read. So, I was taking pineapple powder to Argentina, from Amsterdam.

My anxiety started to kick in, but I laughed it off. While I was waiting to check in, one of the ground flight attendants came around and asked the standard security questions to fly to the United States. “Is this your suitcase?” He said, barely looking at me. “No,” I had to answer. He looked up, clearly surprised at my answer, and asked it again. I explained I was an on-board courier, to which he called security, who asked me the same question. “You will have to come with us.” The door was locked behind me.

I was asked to sit in a corner of an empty room. There was just a table with some files, two chairs, and a security scanner. “Do you know what is in the suitcases?” “Pineapple powder” I replied “Do you know who packed it?” “No.” They looked at each other and I looked at the time. My flight was leaving soon. “Don’t worry about the time, you won’t be getting on that plane.”

I showed them all the legal documents the company sent me when accepting the delivery, claiming responsibility for the products and describing the content. They laughed at the signed paper declaring the products. They opened the suitcases to find the white, tropical-smelling powder on yellow boxes with Arab writing reading ‘Pineapple’. “Can we talk with whoever packed this?” I called the company. There was no answer.

I was alone on this. It was then when my mind started to rush with thoughts and words such as drugs, smuggle, prison.

With sleeve-long gloves, they began to rip off the suitcases, scan the products and test for explosives and possible drugs. I received a call. They let me go.

I was not allowed on my flight to New York because, I was told, “the check in had closed”. Not for the family behind me or the line of 20 people behind them, just for me. I had to get the next flight to Washington, and then fly to New York, where I would get my existing flight to Buenos Aires. Little did I know that the trouble hadn’t even started.

I boarded the plane, being selected ‘randomly’ twice, for inspections. I then realised that the boarding pass had a red circle around the gate number, while other passengers were circled in black. Still, I made it to Washington.

“Do you have anything to declare?” The security at customs asked me after I handed in my passport. My heart started to race. “Yes.” To my surprise, I was just handed an orange paper to fill and was given a locked case containing my passport. For some reason, that felt like a relief. “Welcome to America.”

Once I declared the content in my suitcases, I was allowed to board the next flight, without any complication. And the next. Then I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Our Airbnb was in the artistic area of Palermo in Buenos Aires. [Elsa Barbera]

The instructions were clear: once you land, go directly to your Airbnb, where you will meet all the other couriers. You will re-package the products and bring them to the customer the following morning. And so we did.

One of the couriers re-packaging the pineapple products, ready to deliver

The couriers had flown from all over the world, some from Mexico, others Brazil. Myself, from Amsterdam. There was all kind of pineapple products, brands, and origins: juice, powder, and individual sacks. We all laughed at how random the delivery was and joked about it being drugs or poison.

You might be asking, why would someone send tons of boxes of pineapple products from around the world to a country filled with the fruit? We asked the same question, over and over.

When discussing it with one of the people managing the ‘pineapple delivery’, she told us how, for some companies, investing ten to fifty thousand dollars on on-board couriers is better than having to go through the long lists of declarations and product information — and extra fees — of sending it as cargo.

Trying one of the damaged pineapple cartons, testing if it was, actually, pineapple

It was a similar situation when they flew me to Tahiti. The ship pieces were required the next day, and no delivery service could provide that to such secluded island. Investing in a flight or two was much more affordable than any of the other options.

The company I was working with, Wings on Board, is known to provide the fastest delivery options. Making it to any Asian country from Europe or the United States in less than 24 hours; up to 36 to South America, the Pacific islands or Southern Africa.

Talking to the other couriers whom I was sharing Airbnb with, I heard many other stories and situations. From delivering mysterious, encrypted USBs from the United States to Russia, to jewellery from Switzerland to Ethiopia.

Myself and another courier were semi-rookies in the job, while the rest made a living out of this and flew to between five and seven different destinations a month, with some months cashing in more than £5,000, and others none. It is an unreliable way of making a living, so many combine it with freelancing or part-time jobs. I felt it was the perfect student job.

Frida Kahlo’s mural in Buenos Aires

￼After a few days exploring Argentina’s capital, it was time to go home. This time, stress-free.

The universe laughed at me. Or, at least, the board patrol in New York did. ”Your passport doesn’t seem to work, it must be wet or wrinkled. Please come with me to try a different computer.”

I followed him three floors down, through a staff-only access and doors with big, bold letters reading PRIVATE. I still believed my passport was wet or wrinkled. Until I looked up to see the room we were in: white walls, a table, two chairs and a big mirror. I was being interrogated. Two men came in with my suitcases. “Hi, Elsa.”

My belongings were spread all over the table, being touched, opened and turned one by one. “What was your purpose in Argentina?” I explained and one of them sighed, while the other said “Sounds fun! Do you make money out of it?” I still didn’t know if he was being sarcastic. I answered and gave them some more information, as I would to a friend, trying to keep me calm.

I didn’t mind the questions, as I didn’t have anything to hide. I began to worry when one of them asked about my Instagram following, adding without changing his tone of voice, “Is it because you deal drugs?” I was lost in thoughts, how did they find my social media accounts? And how could he keep a straight face asking that question? I laughed and said no.

I was asked to unlock my phone. In front of me, they went through all my WhatsApp conversations. They wrote down the names and asked me to provide surnames and location. I must admit, when they opened conversations other than my family and friends, I was noticeably and reasonably uncomfortable.

I thought it couldn’t get worse until they opened my pictures. And then, my deleted photos album. My soul left my body, there was not a single cell in my body comfortable with the situation. “Sorry about all the selfies,” I laughed, trying to break the silent, get-me-out-of-here mood.

One of the men left and I was left with the ‘good cop’, who asked me a few more questions about my personal life, made me write down, again, the 10 people I’m currently talking to, people I work with and family members. Then he wished me good luck with my studies and, after playing around on his computer, promised me I wouldn’t be stopped anymore.

I felt exhausted. I thought it must have been because of how slow time goes by when you’re uncomfortable. When unlocking my phone, I realised I had actually been interrogated for over six hours.

A week later, when I was back in London, I received a new message: “Can you fly to Brazil tonight?”

“Welcome to São Paulo,” the pilot said while the passengers clapped with excitement and relief.

All images by Elsa Barbera

]]>François Gabart: The world’s fastest solo sailorhttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/francois-gabart-the-worlds-fastest-solo-sailor/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 13:29:49 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=68001Forty-two days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 35 seconds is the exact time François Gabart needed to sail around the world on his trimaran named MACIF.

He traveled 27,860 nautical miles (51,625 km) on his own, from Port-la-Forêt in Brittany, where he lives, to the English Channel. The official finish line, the one that would see Gabart become the fastest man to complete a round-the-world solo navigation, is drawn between the French island of Ushant and The Lizard peninsula in Cornwall.

From the morning of November 4, to the afternoon of December 17, 2017, Gabart lived on the 98-foot boat that was custom-designed for the purpose. During his voyage around the planet, the French sailor reached impressive speeds of 35 knots (65km/h) that contributed to beating the previous year’s record set by Thomas Coville by six days, 10 hours, 23 minutes and 53 seconds.

During his journey, Gabart was quite active on social media, sharing both the difficult conditions he had to make his way through and the spectacular sunsets that filled whoever followed him with thrill and positive vibes.

So how is Gabart finding life after the voyage? Is mainland even home for a man who feels comfortable spending over a month in the middle of the Ocean, alone? Artefact caught up with him to find out:

“Although I was physically alone, I didn’t feel lonely. I had the ocean and the passion.”

How’s the post-adventure going?

Good, although I am still recovering, I am happy with what I achieved – we achieved. It wouldn’t have been possible without my team. I had been dreaming of this my entire life since I was a young child and since I started sailing.

Will you try to beat your own record?

Not for now. I might in some years, but at the moment I’m focused on a different race. This year’s objective is to win the Route du Rhum, from Saint-Malo, Brittany, France, to Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe. We are now working very hard to make my sailing boat fly, to make it even faster.

When you say you’re still recovering, is it partly from the lack of sleep?

Mainly. To be honest, I didn’t get much sleep, only a few hours per day, and usually not in a row. You know how they say a person should sleep approximately a thousand hours a year? I don’t know. It’s a strange thing with sleep.

There is so much we know about the human body, science is so advanced, but the brain and sleep seem to be a bit of a mystery. We don’t really know how it works. One can survive and resist months without getting regular sleep, with exhaustion, maybe due to the adrenaline, the mental energy. But then, I am still tired.

These months I am trying to rest a lot in order to be fit again by summer. Maybe I can balance out the hours I didn’t sleep while sailing solo by sleeping more than usual now.

Were there any moments when you thought you wouldn’t make it, where you felt weak and about to give up?

Every day.

How did you overcome them?

The conditions during the first ten days were great, but from then on there were tough moments, a lot of pressure.

It was the pressure, and the tiredness that sometimes stressed me, but I tried to remind myself that this wasn’t something I needed to do. It was almost impossible and I was just trying. Every time I managed to take the pressure away, things got lighter.

Forty-two days alone on a boat in the middle of the ocean must feel long and lonely?

Imagine a little kid, a six or seven-year-old on his own on a sailing boat. A much smaller one than mine, of course, maybe an optimist.

Imagine you let the kid go out in the ocean and it gets wavy. That’s how an older boy like me, well, an older man, feels while sailing. I had been planning this for a very long time, but it’s only once you’re there that you really know what it’s like. It is scary at times.

Actually, although I was physically alone, I didn’t feel lonely.

First of all, because it was my decision to go alone, so even if I had felt lonely I shouldn’t really complain about it. Second, because my team was with me. They were obviously not on the boat but they were following me and helping me with whatever was in their hands, giving me advice and cheering me up.

And then, there are so many people in cities such as Paris or London who go on the tube, surrounded by thousands and thousands of other citizens, and they feel extremely lonely.

I had the ocean and the passion.

Now that you’re back and that you can observe your trip from the distance, what advice would you give yourself if you were to start again? Would you do anything differently?

No, because I made it. There’s no specific way to do it. All you really need is passion, energy and hard work. If you want to do it, you can do it. I had no idea if I would be able to, but I just tried. If you don’t try, you never know. And this applies to everything in life, not just to sailing and sports. This is something everyone should keep in mind. I hope it can be a good example for young people. If I could do this, anyone can do anything. Why not?

]]>Cinebra: Cinema, but with a brahttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/cinebra-cinema-but-with-a-bra/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 13:15:25 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=67947Cinebra, who are pushing the boundaries of theatrical drag performance.]]>Backstage at the Rialto Theatre in Brighton on a freezing Friday night, Lydia L’Scabies and Rococo Chanel have just finished performing at their Cinebra: Women in Horror Month show.

It’s a tongue-in-cheek variety show featuring skits, original songs and a whole lot of drag, Megan and Sophie (Lydia and Rococo’s respective Cinebra alter-egos) had the audience in stitches with the horror movie-themed performances.

“We wanted to be these nerdy girls who have unicorn backpacks and probably dyed their hair green once and ruined their hair,” says Lydia.

“We started Sophie and Megan by accident at first, we did a lip sync and went on stage with these pedestrian outfits, taking on the social media world and blogging,” Rococo continues, before Lydia adds, “yeah, trying to be like shit Zoellas.”

With the origins of the phrase rooted in early 20th century Polari, the term ‘drag queen’ has become one understood and recognised almost universally 100 years later.

Pioneers of gay and drag culture like Dame Edna and Ru Paul have helped to break stigmas and preconceptions held by society. Now, in 2018, parts of these cultures have crossed over into the mainstream, including the controversial use and monetisation of the term “OKURRR” by the Kardashian sisters, a term which was popularised by drag queen Laganja Estranga whilst on the now hugely popular Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

Drag Race is watched by millions as Ru Paul looks for America’s next superstar, and is seen by many fans as the pinnacle of a career in drag. But what about queens that don’t have the platform of the hit Netflix reality show, and how do they make a career out of their passion for drag culture?

Lydia L’Scabies, self-titled ‘Queen Flea’, has graced audiences with a plethora of characters and performances, including a horrifying Theresa May and Hermione Granger. She is also one half of Cinebra, with fellow queen Rococo Chanel. Rococo has travelled across the UK and parts of Europe performing, often influenced by horror and is a talented musician.

Lydia and Rococo met in 2013 at university, both with backgrounds in musical theatre and performance.

Lydia as Bette Davis (left) and Rococo as Joan Crawford (right) backstage after a Cinebra show [Dan Marino]

“We both started with a mutual interest in drag, and we clocked the American scene and wanted to do more with it and give it more a theatrical edge than, it sounds insulting but, just going and lip syncing to a Britney song,” explains Lydia.

“We met at uni and it kind of happened accidentally, but it all made sense in a very short amount of time. Everything we did together was always movie based or movie referenced. But then we came it up with Cinebra – ‘cinema but with a bra’, cause they’re just as a relevant and supportive,” she quips. “Movie-themed drag is what it is.”

Rococo adds: “We started maybe a year before the Drag Race thing really blew up in England, doing variety shows, which wasn’t exactly my thing, but I broadened my horizons and started doing more theatre-based stuff.”

Lydia agrees, saying: “We started at a very good time, and that’s opened doors for us individually as well as together. The business plan with Cinebra is that we want seasonal shows. We want to have shows for all of our characters all year round so they can grow and grow and get better and better, and to have that outlet because as much as we love what we do as Rococo and Lydia, this is a lot more rewarding, creatively.”

The pair explain that the whole production of the Cinebra performances is carried out by themselves, including the pre-recorded video clips, song mash-ups, and original music.

“We have a green screen in my bedroom, its a bit of fabric taped to a wall, there are so many times it fucks up and you can see it hanging down, but it works with Sophie and Megan because its meant to be shoddy and bit shit,” explains the self-proclaimed “i-Movie wizard” Lydia.

Cinebra shows also feature special guest performances, with horror-inspired lip sync and live music featuring at the Women in Horror Month show. One guest performer, Prudence Rae, says she loves performing in Brighton because “everyone is very friendly and they all like each other and are very supportive; it’s good for me as a semi-kind-of beginner to this industry to be able to perform with my friends, which takes away a lot of the pressure.”

Prudence, who gave the audience chills with her incredible voice, realises the importance of drag culture and it’s influence on her: “Drag has helped me with my own feminism as well, its such a celebration of women. Some people think its very derogatory towards women, but its satire, and its art in many ways too.

Prudence Rae backstage after her Cinebra performance [Dan Marino]

“People think that drag queens are men who wanna be women, and whilst that is sometimes the case, it’s a performative art, and its opened up and new conversation on gender and performance, which has helped me with my own confidence to perform too.”

Aside from Cinebra, when asked about their individual drag style, Lydia and Rococo decide to describe each others.

“Ro has developed from being this sort of angry, scary burlesquer into, what she’s doing now is taking the whole drag name joke, and its usually occupation based; so you’ve got ‘Debra Crossing’ who’s a lollipop lady, ‘Kate Plantchett’ whose a medium, and pro-vegan acts. A lot of it is very satirical which a lot of people don’t get. It’s still theatrically motivated and its gorgeous and really accessible,” says Lydia.

Rococo explains that “Lydia started a good few years ago, inspired by the ‘West Street Slappers’ of the world.” Lydia jumps in to explain: “West Street is in Brighton, it’s like Yates, Weatherspoons, and ‘OMG YEAH!'”

Rococo continues, “It’s the girls who go to Przym and Oceana, and it kind of developed from that. Her name came from well, having scabies, and a lot of sexually transmitted diseases have come into your work, and there’s a lot of inspired looks from disease.”

Lydia adds, “I wanted my drag style to be a different kind of sexual threat, because people think drag is sexually threatening, but I wanted to literally wear it.”

“You take the sexual threat and still make it sexy,” says Rococo.

“This sounds really Disney and crap, but I came from a musical theatre background which is quite superficial and I was told that you need be this person and that’s what you’re gonna be typecast as and that’s where you belong. It will have an expiry date – kind of like an athlete, but with drag, you can be any age, any personality, you can be what the fuck you are capable of creatively,” concludes Lydia.

Since its addition to the ever-growing line up of binge-watchable series on Netflix, Ru Paul’s Drag Race has become one of the most talked about reality shows in recent years. As the popularity of the show has continued on the ascendance, so has the popularity of drag culture as a whole.

“It’s very handy in terms of work because we get work with ‘Drag-Racers’, and people who have an interest in Drag Race find us locally, but in another way, its sort of umbrella terms drag,” Rococo says, addressing the extra attention on drag culture since the hit American TV show launched.

Rococo as ‘Debra Crossing’ on stage at Revenge [Instagram:Rococo Chanel]

Lydia agrees, saying, “In a lot of ways it’s great, and it’s so great that a lot of people can have the fucking balls to try it, because I was walking to and from places, and my mum would be like ‘why are you walking home in full drag’, and I’ll be like ‘its Brighton, calm the fuck down, I’ve only been followed home like twice so its fine.'”

However, she also thinks that Drag Race hasn’t been entirely beneficial for drag culture. “I’m not going to put on a boiler suit, carry a wrench and call myself a mechanic; a lot of people go out to the club and are like ‘I’m a drag queen’, well you’re in drag, but there’s a difference.

“We started doing what we do to steer away from the whole bitchy, catty need to be horrible to everyone just because you got ready three hours before any random fucker in the club,” Lydia says.

Rococo continues, “I think we are quite blessed in the sense that Ru Paul’s Drag Race hadn’t blown up when we started, so we came into it with a different edge, because people who are starting it now have seen Adore Delano on Drag Race – ”

“And they’re like ‘I wanna wear denim short and a jacket and I slay’,” interjects Lydia. “As soon as they learn to death drop it’s just like what-fucking-ever, how many death drops have we seen in our time?”

“A few,” replies Rococo.

Alongside their Cinebra work, the pair have a residency at Revenge, a nightclub in Brighton, which has allowed them to perform alongside countless Drag Race superstars, including the ‘current fucking reigning’ Sasha Velour.

“It’s really helped over the years to get that Drag Race audience, we get the traffic onto our social media profiles, and then we can move that onto the Cinebra brand,” says Rococo, who believes are benefits from working with the likes of Courtney Act, Latrice Royale, Jinkx Monsoon, Shea Coulee, and Katya.

Lydia agrees, “It‘s nice, people have followed, obviously some people haven’t but I’m just putting that down to stupidity,” she says sarcastically.

“Equally, I have a lot of sympathy for a lot of the ‘Drag-Racers’ because they’re passed around like spliffs across the country, like everyone’s having a big old puff. Meet-and-greets are no fucking laughing matter, having to stay in a pen and a new fucker comes along and cries at you and says ‘I love you so much’, that’s fucking heavy,” Lydia says.

She goes on to say: “Seeing some of them perform, it kind of makes you feel better about what you’re doing. You see some people and you think ‘I fucking love them’, but then you see them live and think is that it? Some people ace it though, like Valentina [on Ru Paul’s Drag Race], all she needs to do is stand there and move her mouth, she even puts five different perfumes on before she goes on stage,” says Lydia.

“She lines them all out, its Valentina everywhere in the dressing room and I was like ‘Kudos, you do you, I’m so okay with this’, she was really lovely,” Lydia adds.

When asked if they would be interested in appearing in a UK version of Ru Paul’s Drag Race (the show’s current format is only open for American applicants), both Lydia and Rococo were hesitant.

Rococo and Lydia as characters from the 2015 horror film Crimson Peak [Instagram:Rococo Chanel]

“Personally, I’d want to watch a season to see how they’re doing it before even thinking about applying. Alaska [Thunderfuck] has said to me, Pearl [Liasion] has said to me, and Sharon [Needles] has inadvertently said to me ‘dont be a part of the machine, just do you’,” explains Lydia.

“It’s difficult because we do want to tackle television, but for different reasons. Building on the Cinebra narrative, episodically, with horror and Christmas and new genres – were seeing it as a television series in the future,” adds Rococo.

Lydia expands on this: “I wanna follow in the footsteps of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who did Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, cause they tackle genres. Equally, the League of Gentlemen guys, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss, its all very skit based but it’s got a feeling and you recognise it and you know it and you love it.”

With the popularity of drag culture only set to increase further, coupled with the blistering ambition and fabulous talent of Lydia and Rococo, the future looks incredibly bright for the Brighton-based drag queens, and for the Cinebra brand.

]]>Go Green Weekhttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/go-green-week/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 12:52:00 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=67733Artefact explores what this year's campaign was all about. ]]>Go Green Week is the UK’s largest week of student climate action that happens every year in universities around the UK.

In 2017, People & Planet (a student network in the UK campaigning for social and environmental justice) planned to draw Red Lines on the universities, colleges and banks investments in fossil fuels. This year they are supporting students across the UK to escalate movement for climate justice.

The banks finance fossil fuel extraction which drives the climate crisis and reproduces colonial injustices. People & Planet want students to demand to stop this. Barclays, the ‘dirtiest’ UK high-street bank, is being bombarded by students to ditch all fossil fuel finance to kickstart a global shift away from the economy’s reliance on fossil fuels.

“Students campaigning for fossil fuel divestment have taken UK universities by storm and left the fossil fuel industry’s reputation at an all-time low. By December 2017 60 unis had made some kind of fossil-free commitment. The fossil fuel industry is weak after we’ve severely damaged their social license to operate; now is our chance to take away what they need most: money,” according to the People & Planet website.

The site not only tells you about Go Green Week (which has been running for a decade) but also gives the opportunity for anyone to get involved in campaigns over the year and offers training alongside that.

Go Green Week at the University of the Arts London (UAL) this year took place February 9th – 16th. Arts Students’ Union (ArtsSU) has supported students that challenge UAL on environmental issues and seen incredible results.

In 2015, UAL Divest successfully lobbied UAL to divest £3.9 million from fossil fuel investments. ArtsSU also lobbied the university to some pretty ambitious plans for upcoming years, which can be seen in the award-winning UAL Sustainability Manifesto.

Their next goal is to ensure that ethical and sustainable creative industry practices become standard within the UAL curriculum. UAL is influencing the industries of the future – what they teach matters.

Although the week may be over it doesn’t mean we should stop and move on. This is something that can be incorporated all year round. A lot of people in London may feel disconnected from nature because even though there are parks and green spaces, it’s not classed as a green city.

It is easy to be discouraged from getting involved with environmental initiatives because it seems like such a massive issue that cannot be solved. A lot of people may feel like it’s disconnected from their lives, that there is something about trees and bees that has nothing to do with human beings, but it is very much to do with humans.

It is inherently connected to other issues we face to our health, our well-being, the economy, to how a society functions, to education, all these issues are connected and we really need to think about how this all affects us.

We should not be so abstract; we need to get over the idea that something that is very difficult to work on because it is urgent and has to be solved, cannot. We need to look at practical solutions and implants now as well as having a long-term strategy for the future.

]]>Life drawing a stripperhttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/life-drawing-a-stripper/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 12:37:33 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=67729Artefact attends a life drawing class at an ex-strip pub, and find out more about life as a stripper.]]>Stripping definitely has a reputation as being on the shadowy side of professions, so it comes as no surprise the misconceptions surrounding women who pursue a career in stripping are plentiful.

Although there might be some truth to these clichés, the women who strip for their own happiness or the women who simply feel empowered by what they do, are not nearly as well recognised.

However, times are changing as more and more women in the industry are on a mission to break the stereotypes, change stigmatisation and speak out about matters surrounding erotic dancing.

On the second floor of an East London pub lies a venue that was once home to strippers and showgirls. Back in the days, the Filthy Fanny’s, a room in the upper story of The Crown and Shuttle, was packed with entertainers from comedians to live bands, all there to amuse rowdy boozers.

Today, however, the venue has been given a different purpose. The ex-strip pub now holds life drawing classes in collaboration with the East London Strippers Collective (ELSC) – a self-organisation of strippers and lap dancers that aim to “challenge societal attitudes towards strip club activity by uniting performers, creating their own working conditions and empowering dancers”.

“I’ve been a stripper myself for over ten years, and I also did a Fine Arts Degree at Glasgow School of Art. I had the idea to combine life drawing with pole dancing when I was a student and attended some intensive life drawing classes where the tutor was getting the model to move around and inviting us to capture movement. I thought to myself ‘hang on, we could put up a pole in here and do this with a pole dancer’. I tried it, and the project was a huge success.” says Stacey Clare, founder of the ELSC and the life drawing class.

In front of professional artists, designers, sketchers, illustrators, animators and doodlers, strippers perform what the ELSC calls a “strip-freeze” – a striptease routine where the model, a stripper, will stop her dancing for one minute and pose for the class to capture her on paper.

As time goes by, and the model has removed all of her clothing, she will do longer and less demanding poses, ranging from five to ten minutes. This final part of the evening provides a more traditional approach to life drawing classes where artists have a chance to capture the model’s body and face in detail.

Having never witnessed a “real” striptease before, and only having been to a regular life drawing classes where models don’t tend to do stripteases, I instantly felt curious when I heard about the event. As it turns out, the class is really popular, and spaces are limited – I had to wait two weeks for a spot on the Monday evening class to open up.

“You only have to look at Matisse’s dances and read a bit about the relationship between artist and muse to see why these classes have become so popular. It’s like the latest instalment of a historical tradition, and we are very happy to have hit upon something genuinely unique. As far as I know there has not been another class like this one in the world,” says Clare, explaining the popularity of the classes.

It’s finally Monday, and I’m in the venue, ready to draw a stripper. Sat down in a dimly-lit room, surrounded by people of all ages and ethnicities, I watch as a woman in high heels walks in. With drawing-pads in our laps and pens in our hands, me and 20 others people observe her as she takes smooth steps towards the metallic pole in the centre of the room.

The stereo is now blasting sensual tunes by Christina Aguilera, and it’s obvious the class is about to start. Wearing a tube top over her bum and breasts, and her curly hair let loose, she begins the tease. She dances slowly around the room, occasionally rubbing her hands over her body or hooking her leg around the pole.

The music intensifies, and much like a cat, she moves around erotically, curving her body just inches away from her audience. The atmosphere in the room is pressing, and her body becomes the centre of attention. As she slides on to her knees, arches her back and becomes one with the music, we’re awakened from what feels like a trance.

“Freeze!” The class-leader calls out – it’s time for the model to strike a pose. She’s still fully clothed and has now made her way up the pole, almost touching the ceiling. With her legs spread apart, she holds on to the pole with her muscular arms as we begin drawing.

Watching her is the easy part. Translating her body onto paper is a lot harder than expected. I consider myself a decent drawer, but life drawing is truly something else. You are challenged by the limited time you have and the fact that there’s an actual person with wrinkles, hair, toes and moles that you need to draw. I have barely finished drawing her arms and legs when she makes her way down to the floor again and continues her dance.

Once the first section of the class is over people make their way downstairs to buy drinks and snacks, before the session resumes. It’s almost as if the vibe in the room has changed. There are no avoiding eyes and bowed heads in the room anymore. The obvious awkward feeling once evident is gone as we’re all now comfortable watching the model’s naked body. We know what everything looks like, and it’s OK to stare – I mean, that’s what we’re here for.

The second half goes by quickly. The model, now fully naked, does longer and more comfortable poses. Some of them she does on the floor, either lying on pillows and a sheep’s wool blanket or sitting comfortably on a bar stool. At the end of the class, the model chooses three people to whom she performs a lap-dance. This allows the class a chance to draw the model interacting with another person.

What I believe makes watching a woman performing a striptease so enjoyable, is the confidence that she has within herself. She’s aware of her own body and knows she looks great and holds power over her audience. Just by moving a certain way makes that confidence reflect all over. It’s also the fact that someone is so comfortable with themselves that makes it so fun to watch.

After class I have the chance to sit down with Bex, the model, to discuss pros and cons of being a stripper, the stereotypical customer at strip clubs and advice for people who are interested in taking it up.

How did you get into stripping?

I trained as a dancer in the UK. I got involved with all kinds of performers and just found it suited me. I was 21 years-old when I started out in Paris, where I ended up dancing for a year. I had tried doing 9-to-5 jobs, but it just wasn’t a good fit for me.

How did your parents react to you working as a stripper in Paris?

My parents are pretty liberal, so they didn’t react a lot. They’re actually crazier than me. I know some girls end up lying to their parents but I just never felt like I had to lie about it. I rang my mum earlier, and she said what are you up to, and I told her about the life drawing class, and she was like “Oh that’s so nice!”.

Why do you do the life drawing class?

Well, it’s my first time today! I’ve been in touch with the ELSC for a while now, they have great events and stuff. I’m kind of someone who goes for new experiences. I try to just say yes to things that sit well with me.

How does the monetary side of stripping work?

We’re self-employed. The system depends very much on the club – some clubs charge a high house fee on entry. It could be £80 or £100 even. Some of those clubs have a toxic atmosphere. There are however many clubs that will charge you like £20 pounds, and after that what you make is your own money. I’ve made up to £8,000 a month, but the least I’ve made is £2,000 to £3,000. If you want to make better money, you have to stick in it and become quite regular with it [stripping]. Sometimes you make nothing, or you can make £2,000 a night – it’s totally random.

What is the best part of stripping?

You get so much confidence from being a stripper, and you do learn a lot of skills. I love the freedom that it gives me to work when I want to work, and the freedom it gives me to do other things. I also like the social element of it. There’s probably people that would assume were just really bitchy with each other, but actually, I’ve made some amazing friends. The female camaraderie in some clubs is excellent. Also, I just fucking like getting dressed up. The glamming up is fun and the performing is a fucking laugh. Especially when it’s going well for you and you’ve got those fucking lashes on, your hairs done, the glitter and you’re like “Ta-Daa!” It’s a laugh.

What’s the worst part of your job?

The bad parts of the job is certain ways some clubs run. You have some clubs where managers get an exaggerated sense of self-importance. Managers at a lot of clubs tend to be men and obviously we’re women, so you’re thinking “I came here to strip because I want to do what I want as a woman.” Sometimes clubs will try to figure out how they get more money out of us and take more commission.

What about health insurance?

If you’re sick, you’re sick. If you get an injury – tough shit.

How do people usually react when you tell them what you do for a living?

I don’t know what people say behind my back, but most people are really fascinated and full of questions. Often it’s women that are more interested than men. A lot of women do come into strip clubs, and they like watching the women and think “Ohh how does that work?” Half of them I think are interested in starting themselves.

Who can become a stripper?

A lot of strippers are quite feisty characters, and it takes a lot of bollocks to start. You have to be quite a character.

What about being in a relationship as a stripper?

It can be a little bit hard to get into relationships. You know how it is when you got a boyfriend and you’re not getting along with his friends, that’s [stripping] going to be the first excuse, like “Oh well she’s a stripper” you know. A guy who did have a problem with it [stripping], I think it was because I was making more money than him. If the trust starts failing in a relationship they might think there’s something going on at work. It’s not about your work. Whether you work or whether you’re going out with your mates, they’re not going to trust you anyway.

What are the most common misconceptions about strippers?

The first one is that we’re like absolute sluts. We’re not, we just like being naked and sexually expressive. Or that we’re all completely fucked up. Of course, some of us are fucked up, but we’re not all fucked up. There’s girls with brains and creative people, we’re not just a bunch of losers, we really are not. Also that we’re greedy gold diggers, maybe we are (she laughs). I don’t know. Of course, everyone likes money.

Describe a normal work day?

I usually like to do my make-up at work. It’s part of my ritual of getting ready and getting into the role. I probably do my make-up for about half-an-hour, have a gossip in the changing room, faff around, make myself a cup of tea. Then I kind of get myself on to the floor and make sure I’m present in the moment and get into where I am. If your head’s somewhere else and if you’re off thinking about a thousand other things you’re probably not going to make any money that night. You have to be present and listening to people. Then I’ll see who else is in that I can potentially work with that night. I’ll look at whoever comes in and whoever’s closest to the table. Private shows you do separately. People pay you buy a dance, or they can pay you buy time. Contrary to what people think, there are a lot of times when people just chat to you.

Do you get money thrown at you or put in your panties?

Not in the UK. We do have a jug collection for money, but throwing one pound coins would be a bit hard.

I wish there was more of them! They’re great spenders. When you get a fat rich guy through the door, it’s amazing. When the dirty old men come in I’m like great. Half the time they want to fucking sit and chat bollocks about their ex-wife.

Advice for someone who wants to start stripping?

Pick a club that’s decent and speak to girls who are already in the industry about what kind of outfits you need to get, also some kind of hustling tips on how to approach customers. You need to take care of your appearance, you have to be presentable and in shape. It’s a physical job. Don’t get too drunk on the job – nobody likes that. Also, don’t bother lying about it. When people lie to their friends and family, I think it creates a burden on people. Fucking own it.

]]>Istanbul’s cats highlight animal welfare flawshttp://www.artefactmagazine.com/2018/03/05/istanbuls-cats-highlight-animal-welfare-flaws/
Mon, 05 Mar 2018 11:48:30 +0000http://www.artefactmagazine.com/?p=67682A golden cat leaps over an ancient half-destroyed wall, not an uncommon Byzantine relic among the streets of Istanbul, moving in the sort of eerie and elegant way reserved solely for felines.

She is just one of the many cats possessing the city in Ceyda Torun’s documentary Kedi dedicated to the scenes and cats of Istanbul. But perhaps more importantly, the film is an ode to the very special, enchanting and a certainly foreign-to-Westerners relationship that Turkish people seem to have with free stray animals.

Unlike many European cities, stray cats and dogs are a beloved part of Turks’ daily lives in the hectic and azure metropolis that is Istanbul. It is common practice to pour a bit of your milk in little bowls outside your doorstep for kittens in springtime, or to pet a street dog if you’re sitting outdoors whilst smoking a cigarette with the other hand. They are not viewed as pets but, as animals to be loved and helped. Independent beings that belong to the city streets, free to roam just as much as you are.

As the film Kedi, which means cat in Turkish,was being internationally acclaimed by everyone from The Guardian to Variety, the mood was very different in Turkey. Whilst a global audience was mooning over the fluffy creatures, and Turks’ ways of serving and adoring them, Turkish newspapers were seeing an increase of news depicting violent acts towards stray animals.

A video of a soldier torturing a kitten went viral on social media — as in many other countries in the world, and perhaps even more so in Turkey, soldiers are seen as people worthy of great respect and are expected to have stellar characteristics. This came as a shock and the video quickly found an echo on the news with Turkish people calling for the animal rights law to change.

In Turkish law, violent acts committed towards an animal is deemed as a “misdemeanour” and not as a crime. Thus, the offenders often get away with paying small fines.

Scenes from the documentary film Kedi

Scenes from the documentary film Kedi

Scenes from the documentary film Kedi

Scenes from the documentary film Kedi

It seemed with each new day, another tiny square on the local newspapers would feature a story of yet another video that caught someone torturing, beating, or even raping an animal. While the two polar opposite representations of how these free animals are treated was taking place in the same country, Torun says the purpose in Kedi was not to portray Turks as all being loving, but rather to showcase the benefits of a relationship that can exist between people and a ‘free’ animal that is not necessarily thought of as a pet.

Globally, viral videos on Youtube and Facebook have also been painting a picture of a quirky tenderness between Turkish people and animals, be it the bearded guy playing the piano for his cat every day or the old farmer who could not bear to kill his goat so the animal, wearing a homemade diaper, now accompanies him everywhere from car rides in the countryside to Sunday shopping sprees at the bazaar.

As heartwarming as these two-minute encounters from the country may be, Turkey has been more accustomed to being on the news radar for strikingly different topics in the past few years — terrorist attacks, protests, and Turkey becoming the country with the highest number of Syrian refugees in the world, on top of an attempted coup d’etat as well.

Torun says they were researching for the documentary film during the summer of 2013, right at the start of the Gezi Park protests – “a wave of demonstrations initially to contest the urban development plan for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park which developed into wider anti-government riots when a group occupying the park was attacked with tear gas and water cannons by police.” Torun and her team returned to film in the late spring of 2014 when the Syrian refugee crisis was starting to show its impact in Istanbul.

“Every day we had to ask ourselves if we were doing the right thing by making a film about cats,” Torun says of the dilemma they were facing, “and every evening we would be convinced that we had to share the genuine love and tenderness, the compassion and sense of responsibility we were witnessing being displayed by the people we would meet.”

“While making the film, my faith in humanity was being restored, and I wanted to share that with the world,” she says.

However, a social media movement in Turkey earlier this year was moving in a contrary direction regarding faith in humanity. As more brutal videos were being shared and condemned online, coverage of the subject dominated national news.

Columns, debates on morning shows, and even celebrity statements followed. Turkish people were pressing for the current laws regarding punitive measures to change as a vast majority saw the people condoning these acts of cruelty as a danger to society.

A famous Turkish actress, Berguzar Korel, said that she certainly wants the animal rights law to change in an interview to Hurriyet, one of the most-read newspapers in Turkey which has repeatedly covered the subject in the past few years.

“Someone who does this to an animal today, will one day do the same to a child, to you, to me. But that should not be the only reason to speak up. All the creatures in the world have a right to live just as much as people do, and that is not even up for debate,” said Korel.

Torun, on the other hand, does not think there has been “a boom in the country of cruel behaviour.” While she is certainly concerned with what is happening in Turkey, she believes it is simply documented and shared on social media more.

“There have always been cases of people doing cruel things to cats and dogs,” Torun explains, “which is an indication of that person’s particular mental health not being stable. It is often an indicator of potential cruelty towards other helpless beings whether that might be children, women or elderly.”

Counselling psychologist Dr Daphne Josselin agrees that acts of intentional animal torture and cruelty (also referred to as IATC) have indeed been related to a range of psychological disorders and associated violent behaviours.

“Several well-known serial murderers and serial rapists abused animals as children and/or adolescents, often with a sexual interest,” Dr Josselin told us, adding that research in this area has often been based on fairly small samples so any conclusions must be drawn with caution.

She stresses that it is unclear whether such acts truly are good predictors of later violence towards people, however, views it as noteworthy that young people committing IATC have often grown in an environment marked by parental neglect or abuse, where they may have witnessed brutality, including on animals.

Kedi examines Turkey’s relationship with cats

When asked whether such behaviour can be treated and how, Josselin says this would depend on what motivated the acts in the first place, as personality disorders such as psychopathy can be complicated to address.

She suggests that at the very least, preventative action can be recommended, whereby animal welfare is discussed in school settings to try and sensitise children to the need to be kind to animals.

The pivotal role of such an education from a young age is something Turkish lawyer and animal activist Gulsah Gorur agrees on, and she is quick to admit that there is a lack of it in the country.

“The insufficiency of education focusing on respecting the right of animals to live, (which begins in the family and should continue in school) causes the foundation of these increasing cases of violent and sexual acts towards animals,” she says.

However, what Gorur considers as the most significant problem, as many Turkish people do, is the current law. At the moment, the law that regards animal rights in the country is the Animal Protection Law No. 5199. Anyone found guilty of violating of this law is punished with a fine. “Hence a person who conducts violent acts, consciously tortures or rapes an animal will get fined and will not be imprisoned,” explains Gorur.

With the increasing social media use “which now even reaches primary school-aged kids,” Gorur indicates that the videos of these kinds of brutal actions have reached millions, resulting in public indignation in Turkey.

“The crimes against animals being regarded as misdemeanours and the lack of deterrent punishment, thus people who conduct these acts being able to get away with it by paying small fines, cause ignorant, uneducated and malevolent people to continue these acts as well as these barbarities to increase,” Gorur argues.

In Turkey, crimes against animals carry a minimum jail time of four months and sentencing under two years is often converted to fines, therefore crimes against animals are often settled with fines rather than jail time.

Ceyda Torun, director of the documentary film Kedi

There are very few places in the world where humans consider non-humans as living beings, which Torun describes as “mind-boggling.” She feels this is an indication of our inability to see others as subjects in their own right, as opposed to objects in ours.

Cats, and “especially cats in Turkey who are as native to the land as people,” were the best medium through which she felt she could convey these more complicated themes. Considering Torun believes that cats are the one animal we have allowed so intimately in our lives without managing to manipulate them (“the way we have with dogs and horses who have been in our lives longer”) the protagonists of her film are not surprising, and perhaps the best-cast actors for this cause.

“There is ongoing talk among activist groups to help change these laws whether in the US, Europe, or Turkey,” she says of the current situation regarding animal rights, “it is a global effort, and each nation can use another’s example to push laws through.”

“What I knew I could do was to address the underlying notion that we need to see animals as having as much rights to resources, and to the pursuit of life, as we do.”